CHAPTER ONE

   Another rainy day in London, England. Zara sat in her room, staring out the window, watching the raindrops fall. She started to wonder what it would be like, being a raindrop. Falling at rapid speeds down to the cold, hard ground only to either splash into a hundred smaller droplets, or to join a large group of them in a puddle. Only two paths for a raindrop, she thought, sighing to herself and going back to her bed and picking up an open book of fantasy creatures she had gotten from her grandmother for her birthday. That’s one more than what I have.
   Zara’s entire family were lawyers. Her mother, her father, her mothers father and her fathers father. And her father expected Zara to join the family business. Her stomach churned at the thought as she turned a page to her book with a picture of a centaur charging a slime beast. “Ooh,” she muttered to herself before becoming completely consumed in the bright and vibrant pictures in her book.
   Her parents weren’t very fond of Zara possessing such a book, as they were very stern and stuck in their ways. ‘Blasphemy’,  they called it, and told Zara that fantasy tales would poison her mind. Her grandmother, however, wasn’t so stuck in reality. Zara loved her grandmother, and possibly considered her grandma her favourite relative.
   She lived out on a horse ranch, and worked and trained horses daily. Zara smiled as she remembered all the times she had gone out to the ranch to visit her grandmother. She would always get to ride Bronco, a painted gelding. Sometimes her grandmother would even let her stand in the ring with her while she tried to tame a stallion.
   Zara’s grandmother was a free spirit, to put it simple. She always wore multi-coloured, bright clothes that were almost as outstanding as her personality. She adored nature and everything in it, and had never liked the city or politics. Zara’s mother said that that was where she had gotten her ‘rebellious’ personality from. Zara’s mother never did like her grandmother, she tried to visit as little as possible, and discouraged her from telling Zara fairytales and such.
   Zara grumbled, turning the page in her book again, this time, to see a picture of a werewolf fighting a vampire. She leaned closer to the book and began to read about the two. “It has been said that werewolves and vampires had fought throughout history…”
   “You’re still reading that shit?” came a voice from Zara’s doorway. It was Mila, her older sister.
   “It’s not shit, and if you say it is again I’ll tell mum and dad that you swore.”
   “So did you.” Mila rolled her eyes while saying so before walking off.
   Zara hated her sister. Mila was such a goody two shoes, always sucking up to mum or dad to get what she wanted, and because she always ranted on about how she wanted to follow in the family footsteps and become a lawyer, they often did give her what she wanted. Zara groaned and rolled over onto her back, hating her sister for doing what she did. Everyone but her parents knew that Mila despised the thought of becoming a lawyer. Mila had them wrapped around her pink nail polished finger while Zara was just ‘the other daughter’. Her parents always told Zara that they didn’t pick favourites, meanwhile it was all too obvious that all they had ever wanted was a normal daughter who would take on the family business; Zara’s parents cared more about their work than their own children.
   “Aaargh!!” Zara rolled over and stuffed her face in her pillow, trying to somehow forget about her retarded family for just two seconds. Mila walked past again, only to see her sister kicking her mattress and pounding her pillow. She made a rather loud, ‘disgusted’ noise before speaking so that all her friends could hear.
   “You’re such a freak!” she spat as she stormed past.
   Zara looked up immediately. Not because of what her sister had said - she had disregarded the thought for the moment - but because she knew that one of her sisters friends was Jesse Arman, an eleventh grader that Zara had been crushing on since grade seven. Had it been two years already? It had, and Jesse had barely even taken note of Mila’s younger, lesser class sister.
   Sure enough, he was there, and he gave her a disgruntled look as he walked past her room. Zara noticed that he had also cocked a brow, which, in her mind, was a good thing. It meant interest, and if he was interested in her, that was definitely a good thing! Zara smiled sheepishly and disregarded Jesse’s following expression; pity.

   The smell of pepperoni and cheese made its way throughout the house, and Zara sat up in her bed to inhale the sweet aroma. The scent was soon followed by a call of dinner time, and the many foot beats of Mila and her friends. Zara went downstairs into the dining room to see Mila’s friends each grabbing a slice of pizza and ungratefully shoving it all into their mouths as they went out the door. Zara narrowed her eyes at her sister, disgusted, but Mila only flashed that same, innocent, cute, ‘I never do anything bad’ look. Zara’s stomach churned again, but this time she wondered if it was because of her sisters antics, of because she was hungry. After deciding that it was a bit of both, she sat down in her spot at the table and filled her plate with food.
   Discussion wasn’t much at dinnertime, but for once, because report cards were coming up, Zara’s parents had a reason to - yet again - show how much of a better daughter Mila was.
   “How are you doing in school, Mila?” her mother asked.
   “Oh I’m doing absolutely wonderful, mother!” she exclaimed in the most hokey voice, that of which miraculously, only Zara seemed to pick up on. After finishing her second piece of pizza, and after Mila had stopped blabbering about her grades, Zara’s mother asked her the same question. Not much of the social type, Zara shrugged while stirring a bit of tomato sauce around on her plate.
   “Good I guess,” Zara noticed that her mother frowned, but couldn’t have cared less.
   She really hadn’t been doing that great in school, mostly because she never paid attention in class. It wasn’t like her sister was doing any better, for all Zara knew, Mila was failing the third class that year. But she couldn’t rat her out, if she did it would mean getting another bruise on her arm. Zara cradled her sore arm at the thought of her sister beating on her again, and sighed. It was like she was stuck in this huge circle of pain and depression.
   After dinner had finished, Zara and Mila washed the dishes, both of them reluctant. Zara was drying a plate when the phone rang. Quickly she put her towel down, placed the plate on the counter and shouted, “I got it!” before rushing into the living room. She had been expecting grandmother to call for a few days now, and this time it had to be her!
   “Hello?” Zara said happily into the phone.
   “Hi, can I speak to your father?” the voice replied.
   Zara frowned. It was just another lawyer thing. Her father had been trying to work out a homicide case, and he’d been getting calls for the past couple of weeks. “Yah just a minute… Dad!” Zara called just as her father came into the room, expecting the call to be for him.
   Zara headed upstairs, ignoring her sisters shouting for her to come and help finish with the dishes and went into her room, closing the door behind her and flopping herself onto her bed. Closing her eyes, Zara tried to imagine what it would be like to be in a good family. She saw or heard nothing except the rain pitter pattering against her window.
   It’s still raining? She thought, getting up and looking out her window. With a sigh, Zara began to daydream about being one of the fantasy creatures in her book. She pictured a centaur running down her street, spear in hand.
   Running out the door, Zara stopped in the middle of the street to greet the centaur. She was about twice the height of Zara, and she was clad in battle garb with symbolic armor and a perfect-fitting helmet. Her hair was long and dark, drenched, but still able to look as soft as silk. Smiling, Zara looked up at the mythical creature as the centaur presented her with a dagger - it was engraved with beautiful markings. Zara looked at it in awe, and when she looked up again to thank her new friend, the centaur was gone.
   Zara’s fantasy was rudely interrupted by her sister, Mila, shouting at her from downstairs.
   “Zara! Grandma’s on the phone!” she yelled impatiently.
   Wide eyed, Zara ran downstairs and snatched the phone from her sister.
   “Grandma!” she answered excitedly.
   “Hey there, Zara!” the voice replied. “Listen, I’ve got a new Lusitano stallion at the ranch, you wanna come up and watch me break ‘im?”
   “Yah!” Zara replied. Her heart began to beat twice as fast as before. Finally, she could go up to the ranch again, where she wouldn’t be bothered by her mother or father, or even sister! “Let me go ask!” she said before dropping the phone and racing off to find her parents.
   Zara found both of her parents in the den; her mother was talking on the phone and her father was typing away on his laptop. Too excited to sigh and pity her life, Zara went up to her mother and asked loudly, “Can we go visit grandma?”
   “Hold on a minute.” her mother said to the person on the other end of the phone, “Zara, I’m busy! Ask your father.”
   Rolling her eyes, Zara went over to her dad and asked him the same question.
   “If it’s okay with your mother.” he stated.
   Zara scoffed and went back upstairs, picking up the phone. “Grandma?”
   “Hmm?” came the reply.
   “When can we come visit?”
   “Tomorrow.”
   “Okay, see you then!”